‘The car dealers still haven’t been able to reach the pre-recession sales levels comparable with the years 2007 and 2008. This means the recession is far from being over yet. The current automobile sales, in fact, only make up a quarter of what was sold in the year 2007, even though the figure could reach up to 60% if there existed sufficient car quotas,’ OOO Avtoland Holding’s Marketing & Advertising Director Svetlana Petrovikh said to UrBC. ‘The somewhat restored consumer demand has already caused a shortage of the most popular makes, so now the best-selling cars are inexpensive,

London School of Business and Finance (LSBF) and Facebook set up a JV that will allow Facebook users around the world to get free access to MBA course materials, RIA Novosti reports. All one has to do is download LSBF Global MBA application on one’s computer to get acquainted with the lectures, take part in discussions, look into case studies, ‘meet’ the top managers of the world’s leading businesses, and enjoy student interaction. The application provides the users with approximately eight hundred hours worth of multimedia materials, Vedomosti says. At least 500,000 people from around the

Swedbank Group’s OAO Swedbank will keep cutting back on its retail operations in Russia in order to concentrate on the services rendered to business customers based in Scandinavia, the bank’s new Chairwoman of the Board Elena Lozovaya said to RBC daily. ‘The bank will be going through a transition period until the year 2012. Our main future focus will be providing services to the business customers on Swedbank Group’s ‘home’ markets,’ the executive explained. OAO Swedbank already stopped offering term deposits, bank cards, and individual safety vaults to private customers on October 1, 2010.

Recession is now felt less keenly by the Russian banking system, whereas the banks’ asset quality and capital structure keep improving and the liquidity is rising due to growing deposit volumes, the international rating agency says in its report entitled Russian Banks Start to Recover as Crisis Subsides. ‘The measures taken to counteract the recession and improve the market infrastructure (especially the steps targeted at giving the banks access to liquid funds) did reduce the system risks a bit, so Fitch expects that, in case of another market emergency, banks will receive support with

‘Orenburg Airlines Goa-Yekaterinburg flight was delayed for many hours because of an emergency at Goa Airport. For one, some serious runway problems were detected, so the flight had to be postponed by ten hours. The plane took off at 3:20 PM local time, so the passengers will arrive in Yekaterinburg at 11:30 PM. Meals were provided for the travelers for the time of the delay,’ Sunrise Tour informed UrBC. Now according to Yekaterinburg Koltsovo Airport’s interactive announcement board, flight ORB-9636 was to have arrived from Goa at 11:50 AM local time.